The part about the interfering with negative posts is disturbing. I have heard that that is sometimes done at Newegg as well.

Buyer be ware. Thanks again to SJRacer for the good info here!

July 27th, 2006, 04:09 PM

sjracer

No problem. As I had said back when I posted my long story, that is one thing I love about the Hardware Central forums, I have seen heated discussions here, postitive and negative posts. Never has one been deleted. Granted, I am sure I have seen a few posts to knock off illegal discussion, but that one is a no brainer. This forum rocks and I agree, this post was due to come back to the top to highlight to users to be ware of companies like Alienware. Having said that, I am sure there are very happy Alienware customers out there. I just have never met one. Matter of fact, I have a guy I work with who has an Alienware Desktop that just crapped out on him. He asked me to help him rebuild/replace the bad parts. I told him I am glad to help.

SJRACER

November 9th, 2006, 01:43 PM

flflyguy

Alienware Taking Action

Couldn't resist.

Alienware is apparently taking aciton to prevent people from getting bad notebooks, by making it more difficult to get them :P

I applied for an alienware credit card. I travel extensively for work, so my shipping address is different from my billing address, as I have someone who does my accounting for me, and I take care of their home office network.

After 4 days of the order in phase 1, I called them (they weren't worried enough to call me). They said that the order couldn't be confirmed because of the differences in billing address. I changed my billing address with the credit card company (Alienware Credit Card BTW). They then said they needed a phone number to confirm my employment (Again). I advised I cannot give out the number, but we have a web based automated system I can have send them a fax. The rep on the other side of the phone sounded like a latin broken record simply stating "company policy" over and over again.

I've since sent in 2 emails requesting assistance on purchasing this $4.5k notebook, and nobody at Alienware seems to care if they make the sale or not.

Guess I'm going to have to find a new one. Dell is good, I was just drooling over that dual nvidia sli video on a notebook.

and yes, I know desktops are better for gaming, but I travel about 90% of the time for work, so my choices are limited.

BTW, agree w/ the comments on the forums here, been looking around before I registered, looks like a great site!

November 9th, 2006, 03:29 PM

ThreeOnTheTree

Well, you're always welcome to post here. :)

You know, the peculiar thing is that Dell now owns Alienware, so I'd imagine that eventually these problems will become more Dell-like. Ironically, it doesn't matter which one you buy (Dell or Alienware), the money will probably end up in the same bucket. Personally, I'd avoid Alienware with a 10 meter science pole based on what I've heard. I'd get a Dell XPS, since Dell takes more of a no-nonsense approach to repairs and support.

November 11th, 2006, 09:04 PM

The Black Adder

Did you eventually send it back and pay the 15% fee. How long did it take you to get the refund?

The Black Adder

November 26th, 2006, 01:47 PM

sjracer

I appologize for the lack of comment on this guys. Work kept me away from my computer and this is the first day in about a month I have been able to get on and check out the Forum. Glad to be back :D

Anyway yes, I did eventually get a 100% refund, but it was not an easy venture. Just returning it was a nightmare. The reason they ended up waving the restocking fee is because they messed up. I had sent it in for "repair" after it went up in smoke, and then I processed the return. About 2 weeks after the "return" I recieved the system back. Didnt even crack the box open. Just sent it back and sent them a nasty grahm. They reluctantly agreed to waive the stocking fee mostly because I had paid to have it shipped back, with insurance two times. Once because I sent it in for repair, and the second time because they sent it back.

I do not reccomend Alienware. I am a gamer, and have a kick butt gaming system, but also I have a decent laptop that I have had for a year now. It is an Acer. Many laptops out there are capable of some gaming at lowered settings. Mine does alright. Anyway hope this helps.

SJRACER

September 4th, 2007, 05:57 PM

mmiksha

SJRACER Help!

SJRACER, can you E-mail me @ pfelch@gmail.com. I just joined the forum and can't send mail yet. I think I'm going to be sick.

May 6th, 2009, 09:00 PM

MISDirector

OMG $5k Alienware POS

I had always heard that Alienware made the best gaming computers, I had never bought one but for my new machine I decided to take a shot.

Just short of $5000 bought me an M17 with all the bells and whistles, Quad-core 4GB ram, Crossfire video, RAID0 hard drives and Blue-Ray drive.

Right off the bat I found that the finger print reader and the Visual login software were not compatible with each other and the AW support team was worthless to figure out why. Since this was not really a big deal I didnt worry to much.

A month in upon boot one of the HD would not show up in the RAID thus the machine would not boot. After one reboot it would show up but still no boot. Upon the third reboot, it would now boot to OS. This would happen anytime the computer was off for anything over an hour, sleep or powered off.

I called AW and was told that I needed to back up the machine to test it. A month later I was able to do so and called back. After an hour with another brain child of a tech, they sent me a new HD that I had to pay for in advance to get a cross ship (money well spent on the 3 year on site warranty...NOT) Drive arrived and it is a refurb OMG. Put it in and reinstalled the OS left the office and came back the next day to find upon reboot, HD not found in RAID...GRRRRR.

Called back got a third genius who told me that the drive not showing up in the RAID upon POST was due to a corrupt OS image on the Alienrestore disk :confused: I guess they dont teach them that the OS is loaded after the POST.

This time they want me to ship the laptop back to them since they believe it is a motherboard issue. I asked to have a box shipped to me to send it in and asked for the box to come to my office (hard thing right?) now they want to ask me some questions to verify that it is me, so they ask me questions about my ex wife whom I have not seen nor talked to in over 10 years. :confused: Since I could not answer the questions they said they could not send A BOX to my office for security reasons.

Well finally I got a supervisor to approve sending a box to me, but low and behold it is now two weeks later and no box. Called back in and was told that there is delay and it would be best for me to pay for a box and ship the machine back and call in for reimbursement....are they kidding me????

While I understand that computers have issues just as anything electromechanical can, one would think that when you pay so freaking much for a computer and its warranty that one would get some sort of service along with it.

1 to 10 rating of Alienware? -5 OMG you guys SUCK!!!! Never again will I buy a machine from you.

Especially since I have found that the case, MB, and display can be purchased from Newegg for a fraction of what I spent on my machine and I would build my own laptop that looks the same without the AW back of the case (big deal) for about 2k less.

Dell better figure something out of their high end computer line will suck their support rating out the window.

September 2nd, 2009, 08:35 AM

Wolfsburg

Absolute nightmare

From my early teenage days I had the dream of once owning an allmighty alienware system. Along the past decade I have gone through medical school and many other challenges, always conserving that silent dream within myself. Today I find myself in a position in which I could finally (and barely) afford the system of my dreams. So I have purchased this Alienware Area 51-X58 Desktop about a month ago, for about 4 thousand euros. The thing came with a i7 950 processor and two GTX 295 GerForces in Crossfire. You guys probably get the picture...

For twenty days I have experienced a personal hell, with a ridiculous amount of crashes, conflicts and whatnot. My extended hardware warranty would'nt advice me on it so I was forced to hire SOFTWARE support from Dell, for a couple extra hundred Euros. After three Windows reinstallings and a complete HD format, I still got a sluggish and frail operating system that would crash by lets say, opening MSN Messenger (such a great effort, eh). I FINALLY got to talk to the hardware support team (twenty days later, returning period expired for Europe customers), when a motherboard problem was found after 5 hours of remote assintence. Now the best perspective I got is to ship the damn machine back to Ireland (im in Switzerland), and WAIT sitting on my *** for 5 weeks without a personal computer, in order to get back EXACTLY THAT which I should have gotten twenty day ago. No further reparation for the precious hour I've lost (doctor hours cost quite a bunch, as you can imagine), for the stress I have endured and for the humongous expectative reversal I have experienced.

I'm waiting on their e-mail to provide me with better conditions, but im frankly skeptical about it.

I'll keep you guys posted on the outcome of the matter. Until then, Alienware grade of satisfaction for me is clearly one, in a 1 - 10 scale.